The Summer We Forgot, page 34
“That’s why you broke into Dr. DiMarco’s office,” I breathe, my heart a steel ball wrecking my sternum. “You figured it out.”
Brent clenches his jaw. “That you lot killed Richard Horowitz? Yes,” he says so matter-of-fact I almost don’t believe he’s referring to me. “I left town after the Comber burned, figured you’d snitch, but nothing happened. Weeks later I returned to work on a house and saw you in Grayton. You hugged me, asked where I’d been. Heck, you acted as if you’d forgotten . . .”
That night he fought me in the Comber’s alley.
What he did to my arm.
“I would’ve gotten an athletic scholarship, you know, been able to swim for college. I was good.” I choke on the words. I can’t stop trembling. My chest tightens and contracts, verging on implosion. “I really liked to compete.”
Tears cut lines down my face. I can’t decide whether I’m more devasted or angry. I want to punch Brent. I also want to crumple to the dock and sob. I don’t cry, but I feel like crying now.
“Yeah, I know.” Brent shuffles his boots against the planks. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not. Let’s face it!” I shout. “If you were sorry, you wouldn’t point your gun at me.” I smirk and release a sardonic laugh, which seem better than bawling in front of him. “What gave away the killing and memory repression, huh?”
“People don’t forget for no reason.”
“Fair enough.” I motion to his gun, rage boiling into my voice. “What happens now? Are you going to shoot me?”
“Brent!” Darby runs toward us, her lopsided gait rocking the platform. She halts beside me and glares at my so-called uncle as if she plans to tear him from limb to limb.
No, no. She needs to stay away. She’s not safe out here.
Brent seems to deflate at the sight of her. “I didn’t want to hurt you.” His eyes gloss over. Serves him right for going after the kids he watched grow up. “I thought if I sent the notes and scared you a little, you’d remember where you stashed the money. Believe me. I never planned to go this far.”
“We all went further than intended.” Darby watches him, a nuance of compassion softening her expression. Not forgiveness—I don’t think either of us will manage that for a while—but an understanding. “Drop the gun. Please.” She extends her arms and takes a cautious step forward. “We can make this right—”
“Too late.” Brent clutches the pistol with both hands. He glances from Darby to me, thoughts almost reeling within his pupils. He can’t walk away from tonight and resume his old life. We saw his face. We know his crimes.
Unless he plans to commit murder, his best option lies with a duffel bag hidden in dunes.
“Get on the boat, Morgan.” Brent aims his gun at me. He wears desperation, the kind that makes people crazy. “We can keep this between us.”
My hair stands on end, my knees putty when Brent yanks me toward his aluminum Jon boat. I toss my cell phone to the dock.
The counselors can use its recording as evidence.
Darby limps after us. “Over my dead—”
“Stay where you are!” Brent jerks me to his side and presses the firearm against my lower back. “I’ll let him go once I have the money.”
I give Darby a nod. “I’ll be fine.” My body must disagree. It goes haywire. I’m shaking all over. Whatever. I need to comply. Brent will take a counselor hostage. Better he abducts me. I might be able to reason with him, and if I can’t . . .
Maybe he won’t pull the trigger when I make my escape.
Brent guides me onto the vessel. He rummages through a tackle-box, removes a zip tie, then binds my wrists before shoving me onto a bench. “Don’t move.”
“You won’t kill me,” I say when he starts the motor. “You’re not a murderer.”
“Kid, I’ve done things I didn’t think myself capable of doing.” He looks at me almost pleadingly, his Adam’s apple bobbing with a swallow. “Don’t put me in a situation where I’ll have to add another thing to that list.”
A chill ascends my spine. I tug at the zip tie as Brent untethers the boat from a cleat. He’s not a murderer, but he’s desperate, and desperation can make a killer out of anyone.
“What about Dad?” I shout over the motor’s gurgle. “He’s your best friend.”
“Just take me to the money, alright? I’ll disappear, and you can go back to your life.” Brent leans close and grips my knee, his face creased with emotion. “Do this, and I’ll make all the bad stuff go away. Please, Morgan.”
The bad stuff won’t go away. Not that simple. We can’t erase our mistakes or trauma. We must look them in the eyes, remember, and live forward. That’s how it goes.
“I can’t, Brent.” I swallow hard, my answer draining what remains of my strength. Brent tightens his fingers around the gun. He stands and opens his mouth to speak, but he falls sideways instead, Darby tackling him off the boat.
The pistol fires twice into the hull.
“Wallis!” I lunge toward the gunwale when Darby and Brent crash into the lake and vanish under its black surface. My shoes go wet.
Water bubbles from bullet holes and washes across the deck.
“Darby!” I bite the zip tie, but it won’t snap. I lean over the brackish water and scan its ripples for movement. Nothing. They should’ve emerged by now.
Sirens blare.
Police lights appear near the dining hall, flashing red and blue.
My skin crawls. I tug at the zip tie one last time, then suck air and dive off the boat, into lukewarm water that reeks of marine creatures. I point my tied hands overhead and move my hips in a butterfly kick, the vacuum hissing with muffled sounds.
Night air cools my scalp when I surface.
Darby pops from the depths, gasping and coughing. “I lost Brent!” She flails, my pocketknife clutched in her hand. “Did you see him come up for air?”
“You pulled a knife on him?” I twist onto my back and swim toward her.
She frees my hands with a cut, then spins circles, studying the lake. “I didn’t want Brent to hurt you—” She bursts into sobs. “We need him, Morgan.”
“Hey, hey we’re okay.” I pull Darby to my chest, police lights shimmering across the water. I rest my chin against her forehead and lock gazes with the woman now watching us from the dock. “We’ll be okay.”
The following interview was conducted at Walton County Sheriff’s Office on July 12, 2022, at 12:51 a.m. Present at the interview were Detective Naomi Sutter (SUTTER), Darby Wallis (WALLIS), Morgan Rhodell (RHODELL), Eliza Becker (BECKER), Spooner Hudson (HUDSON), Kip DiMarco (DIMARCO), Cyrus Gunn (GUNN), Annabelle Shaw (SHAW), and attorneys-at-law Clayton Walker (WALKER), Hope Peeler (PEELER), Katie Pilson (PILSON), and John Vollrath (VOLLRATH) regarding case number 16–001345, which involved the death of Dr. Richard Horowitz.
SUTTER: I spoke with Dr. DiMarco. He agreed to testify on your behalf.
DIMARCO: Really, Dad told you?
SUTTER: He gave a written confession.
DIMARCO: Will he get a prison sentence?
SUTTER: Not for me to say. The case will go to court.
WALLIS: What happens now?
SUTTER: I believe I understand what took place two summers ago. After an extensive interrogation, and thanks to cooperation from Rolf Becker, the property group confessed to several counts of fraud and embezzlement. Their statements align with your narrative.
BECKER: My dad will go to jail, too, won’t he?
SUTTER: You’ve experienced a lot. What happened—it wasn’t your fault.
HUDSON: We killed Dr. Horowitz. I killed him. Chill out, lawyer man. It’s true.
SHAW: To protect me. You did it for me, Spooner. I’m grateful, you know, to all of you.
GUNN: Did you dig up the money?
SUTTER: It was in the dunes at Grayton Beach State Park, right where you said it would be.
HUDSON: See, my treasure map worked.
RHODELL: What about Brent? Did you find him?
SUTTER: We’re still on the hunt for Mr. Laroy, but we’ll locate him. Don’t worry.
GUNN: What about us?
SUTTER: I don’t expect you to serve time, not with so many testimonies in your favor. The judge will decide, of course. I’ll take the stand and give my account, and perhaps the county will strike a deal, recommend community service or something. You got lucky.
RHODELL: Not to sound rude, Detective, but we don’t feel lucky.
SUTTER: You should. All of this could’ve panned out a lot differently.
WALLIS: What do you mean?
SUTTER: The county issued a warrant for Horowitz’s arrest after police visited his home and discovered evidence proving the exploitation of minors. Horowitz committed felonies, a known fact, which adds further credibility to your statements.
SHAW: He would’ve hurt us.
SUTTER: Now let’s address the matter of Mr. Hudson’s disappearance.
HUDSON: Okay, I didn’t mean to freak everyone out.
DIMARCO: Please give him one of those ankle bracelet things.
HUDSON: Dude, what?
SUTTER: I’m exhausted, and I’m sure you are too. How about we call it a night?
Chapter 30
Darby
JULY 12
WALTON COUNTY SHERIFF’S OFFICE
The summer we forgot reaches its expiration date. With handcuffs slapped onto wrists and bins of evidence stacked on the interrogation room’s table.
Dr. DiMarco and the property group taken into custody.
A friendship bracelet laid to rest in my case file.
Detective Sutter releases the counselors around one o’clock. We shuffle to the waiting room, igniting a frenzy of hugs and tears and lawyers instructing us what to do next.
I struggle to keep my eyelids raised. I lean against Dad, my head fuzzy with the pain medication an EMT gave me. She patched up my wounds in the back of an ambulance. A valiant effort considering I am more cuts and bruises than skin and bone.
Dad braces my weight. He speaks kind and soothing words to me. I hear them, but they seem distant, and I sink deeper into a fatigue that jellies my legs and knots my stomach.
Mrs. Hudson embraces Spooner and weeps into his neck. Kip sits with Cyrus and his grandparents. Eliza cries onto her mom’s shoulder. Annabelle speaks with her parents near the reception desk, clarity in her once haunted eyes.
Healing so often resembles grief.
Morgan rushes to Gil. He bursts into tears, shaking as Gil embraces him. His sobs cut through me. I blink and hug my chest, covered by a What SUP T-shirt from Morgan’s Jeep.
Still no sign of Brent Laroy.
I might’ve killed him when I tackled him into the lake.
Gil releases Morgan. My vision blurring, I go to Morgan and let him absorb me into a hug. I loop my arms around his waist. I press my cheek to his chest, praying my thoughts leap from my mind to his. We’re not what people have done to us. We’re not what we’ve done to ourselves. We’re not the past. We’re the future. Not what’s been done. What we’ll do.
And I plan to do a lot of good with him.
“What if it isn’t over?” Morgan breathes against my temple. “What if we didn’t remember everything? What if we never do?” He cradles the back of my head as though to protect me.
“It’s over,” I say to comfort him and myself.
The wall clock ticking closer to one-thirty, we all leave the sheriff’s office. I limp outside, my right leg in desperate need of a hospital. I’ll get an X-ray once I sleep off yesterday.
Christian waits in the parking lot. He sits propped against the hood of his car. When Eliza emerges from the building, the faintest smile tugs at his lips.
Not all habits die hard.
I look at him and her, chills snaking through me. She pretends not to see him. She looks at me instead, and I want to believe the Forgotten Summer ended today, but I sense every grainy detail is nestled deep in my muscles forever.
The details may cause her pain too.
I freeze midstep and watch the other counselors go out like the tide. Images reel through my head as a montage, a summertime liturgy of fireworks and sunsets and pink skin beaded with sand.
A friendship bracelet clutched in a dead man’s hand.
We can’t hide behind forgetting. We must accept what happened two years ago and move forward with our closet bins spilled out for all to see, determined not to repeat our mistakes.
I make a silent vow to remember and let go.
But when I slide into the backseat of Mom’s Ford Explorer, I get the sense my history will never let go of me.
Chapter 31
Morgan
AUGUST 2
GRAYTON BEACH
I turn the key and hold my breath until the engine catches and runs. A gurgle sounds from the cabin cruiser’s stern. Better than music. “How’s she looking?”
Cyrus rises from the engine box and shuts its hatch. “Checks out. We’re all set.” He wipes his hands on a striped towel, lurching sideways when Spooner leaps from the dock and crashes onto the boat’s deck. “Dude!”
Spooner lands in a crouch. “Marina only had knockoff coke.” He waves a glass bottle at me, then scrambles to the bow, his sleeveless pelican tee ballooning with self-made breeze.
“You don’t like coke.” Cyrus tilts back the rim of his bucket hat.
“Yeah, but I gotta christen the ship.” Spooner hunches over the bulwark and lifts his bottle. “I christen thee Lauren Alaine.”
“Don’t chip the paint.” I lean against the pilot’s chair. A smile glues to my face. Can’t shake it, haven’t been able to for a solid week.
Spooner whacks his bottle against the hull. Instead of shattering, it leaves a dent.
I clutch my head. “Spoon!”
He shoots me a wide-eyed look, his throat jerking with a swallow. “You know, I like it. Adds character.” He flashes a grin before veering his attention to Cyrus, who now applies a second round of sunscreen. “Got something on your nose there, Cy. Let me help.” Spooner licks his index finger and reaches for Cyrus’s white-splotched face.
They wrestle, Cyrus tackling Spooner onto a pile of life jackets. A regular occurrence nowadays. Spooner decided to move in with his mom full time. He’ll go to Emerald Coast High for senior year and from the looks of it, he’s right proud to be a 30A resident again. Heck, I would be, too, if I were a celebrity.
After news of Dr. DiMarco and Coastal Bay went viral, Spooner launched a true-crime podcast. He blew up overnight. Guess everyone wanted to hear from the missing kid turned amateur detective.
Last week Nikki visited his show as a guest. They hinted at the case—they’ll tell all after the trial—and talked about memory suppression. Online forums had a field day.
If the millions of streams weren’t enough to give Spooner an ego the size of Texas, he also has groupies who call themselves Little Spoons or something terrible like that.
Eliza swings her leg over the gunwale. “You dinguses ready for passengers?” She climbs onto my boat with a paper bag propped against her hip. “Here’s your sandwich.” She chucks a gas station sub at Spooner.
“Aw, you remembered.” Spooner abandons his match with Cyrus and unwraps the ham-and-cheese hoagie. “Eliza, you’re a bro.”
“Yeah, yeah. Heads up, Cy.” She tosses him a hot dog, a pathetic substitute for his favorite lunch. Grouper sandwich went extinct with the Comber. To Cyrus’s disappointment, there’s talk of the restaurant becoming a Southern fusion eatery.
Annabelle boards and places a cooler on the deck. She’s changed the most, her hair shorter, smile wider. I wouldn’t recognize her as the mystery girl from earlier this summer if I didn’t see her on the regular. Now that she and Cyrus are dating, she visits What SUP a lot.
Dad should put her on payroll.
I prop my forearms against the boat’s wheel. Once the motor idles for a couple of minutes, I gradually raise the throttle, water churning beneath propeller blades. All those hot afternoons in my yard paid off. Engine doesn’t miss a beat.
Spooner groans, his mouth full of sandwich. “You forgot to ask for mayo.”
Eliza rolls her eyes and climbs onto the bow, exposing her bathing suit to the sun. She moves to Niceville in a few days. With Rolf on bail and facing years of prison time, Lulu wanted to give their family a fresh start. Understandable. 30A gossip isn’t kind to relatives of criminals.
The move won’t break up our friend group. Niceville isn’t far, and Lulu decided not to sell her half of Paloma, so Eliza will visit Seaside to work occasional shifts. She hates she won’t graduate with us. She’s furious at her dad. But she has brothers and a strong mom. She was offered an internship with a local fashion designer. I think she’ll be alright.
Friends get us through rough patches, but some hardships are best endured with family.
Kip saunters down the dock, his visor lowered to his brow. He stops near my boat and studies its vintage exterior. “My pool noodle looks more seaworthy than this thing.”
“Go and get it then.” Spooner collapses onto a bench and snickers. “Hey, we can hook a line to him, maybe catch a hammerhead.”
I toss a life jacket to Kip. “You’ll float.”
He steps onto the swim platform, swaying before crawling onto a back seat. I’ll miss having him around. Dude plans to move in with his mom and visit us next summer. I invited him to sleep on my couch if his dad’s house isn’t available.
Our case won’t go to court for several months. We’re still in the pre-trial phase, which includes a lot of lawyers and hearings. Like members of Coastal Bay, Dr. DiMarco won’t receive his sentence until a jury delivers their verdict. He lost his practice license, though, which seems a step in the right direction.
I went ahead and bought new sheets for the sofa.
Footsteps pound the dock.
“Spoon, push off, would you?” I bend over the gunwale and untie my boat from a cleat.
“What about Darby?” Spooner flinches when she lands on the deck. He curses, his cheeks flushing. “Yeah, sure, give me a heart attack.”
“Sorry I’m late. Had to close up.” Darby wiggles off her What SUP T-shirt, exposing a bikini I try very hard not to notice. Dad hired her after the Comber closed, claiming he needed someone smarter than Cy and me to work the register. I know better.
